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Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for 2007!

I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about the ‘state of the game’.

Now that the WotLK Beta has gone live without a non-disclosure agreement, the news is pouring out in waves.

Everyone is looking ahead eagerly, desperate, it seems, to find out how the game we have come to know so very well will be changing. And I’m seeing a lot of panic out there.

A few cold, hard facts for you to keep in mind.

You’ve got FOUR MONTHS until you will be playing those changes. Figure early to mid November. Four freaking months. Relax. Sit your ass down. Put the car keys or bus token back in your pocket, pop a Dew, and just…. chill. Please.

What you see now is unfinished, and isn’t just ‘subject to change’, IT WILL CHANGE. For the love of Elune, before you go dump your outrage or enthusiasm on the forums, RELAX. See above notes on FOUR FREAKING MONTHS.

As you look at upcoming or proposed changes with your current level 70 raiding or casual perspective, and worry about the ‘nerfing’ of your beloved content, remember – you’re getting a whole new ‘level 80’ range of content. No one will care how easy current raids will become, because everyone will be focused on hitting 80 and getting level 80 gear from level 80 instances and raids.

If Blizzard announced they were nerfing Ragnaros’ Sons of Flame so he submerged and they appeared every 6 minutes instead of 3, do you really think anyone right now would give a shit? Seriously? Think about it. Today’s content is next years abandoned wasteland.

When was the last time you worried about the difficulty levels of AQ40? Or Onyxia? Or Blackwing Lair? These are areas that still exist, and have been turned into nostalgia runs for overgeared and overleveled players. Today’s Black Temple? Yeah…. do the math.

I have seen lots of people that are seriously ‘viewing with alarm’ the changes to classes, specs, gear, etc. And every perspective has been in comparison to the raids we know and that are in the game already for level 70.

Remember, everything they are doing, they are doing with the new level 80 content in mind. Don’t panic. Deep breaths. Reeeellaaaaaaxxxxxx.

Enjoy the game you have NOW. You got FOUR MONTHS.

They are removing the Bear Mount from timed clears of Zul’Aman for a reason. When we hit 80, ZA will be old, tired stuff (which I will particularly enjoy romping through, since it ain’t old or tired to ME), and the gear will be level 70 grade and no longer desired… but a bear mount is a bear mount forever, and coveted. I hope that rather than remove it entirely, they make it a rep-based reward for ZA clears, or a rare drop from the final boss like the ZG Tiger or the Baron Mount of Undead Strat… but we’ll see.

The point is… FOUR MONTHS. Deep breaths, people.

Let’s take a look at the way things have changed along the the last year, shall we?

When we looked in on Burning Crusade last year, we had some really nice crafted recipes that each Profession could have. BUT, the best ones required materials that dropped Bind on Pickup from level 70 Heroic dungeons. The VERY best ones required a BoP drop from 25 man raids.

Now, a year later, Primal Nether and Nether Vortex are easily obtained… you can craft what you’d like. The very best gear that can be crafted now requires Sunmotes, which drop from Sunwell Plateau 25 man raids… and so do the recipes that require them. In time, will we see Sunmotes for Badges?

Probably. And life will go on. There will be a new ‘you had to do the content to get it’ recipe list and material drop, and the old ones will be opened up to more casual players.

This is the trend we need to keep in mind. On release, certain things will only be available to those that advance, challenge the content, and succeed. For a brief time, perhaps as long as 6 months, they will be able to take a certain amount of satisfaction that they have what no one else can get without raiding or PvPing at a certain level.

And then that level of content/crafted drops will be opened up to more casual players, and new content will be released that raises the bar for raiders and PvP even higher.

It’s okay. Seriously.

If you are playing the game to prove that you are better than other people you see, based on whichever yardstick you want to use, PvP rankings, progression rankings, rarity of gear, whatever… that is perfectly valid.

But, accept that the game WILL change… if you want to stroke your epeen and be the best, then accept that the bar will continue to be raised, and you will never be ‘done’. The game is never won. You will have to keep going on that treadmill forever.

Whining about the epics you got by beating Ragnaros being obsoleted by level 62 greens in BC certainly got you far, didn’t it?

For those of you that want to be the best, however you choose to define ‘best’, please also keep in mind that your reason for playing is not universally shared by everyone else… and no, we’re not all going to change just for you. We like playing things our own way, and if you don’t like it, it concerns us not at all.

The game is massive… there is room in it for Role Players, casual friends and dedicated raiders, PvP junkies and Trade channel chatters alike.

I have an example of spazzing I could share as an example….

I listened to The Instance podcast last night while messing around with a stealth alt… likewise, I was on the WoW Insider podcast on Saturday.

The subject of Achievements came up on both. The Instance covered it in a very thorough, professional way. They did a great breakdown of what they are now and speculated a little on what they might become.

They had to speculate because… well…. FOUR MONTHS until we see the finished goods.

Both podcasts had a ‘what do you think of them’ part, and the hosts described their feelings on this totally new content, which none of us has yet played at all, and which has FOUR MONTHS of tweaking ahead of it.

Assumptions abounded.

What struck me as amazing though, wasn’t just how many people hated the concept of Achievements and wanted nothing to do with them, but how many people I am seeing that state they want Blizzard to remove them entirely.

“I don’t want them in my game”.

Well… I DO want them in my game. If you don’t want them… hey, good. Go play the parts of the game you want. If you don’t like PvP now, you can go quest or raid or chat in Trade. No one is forcing anyone to PvP.

Likewise, if you don’t want to do Achievements… then just don’t.

But don’t decide to pull a nazi and tell Blizzard that, just since YOU don’t want them, they should remove them so *I* don’t get to enjoy them. Screw you.

I hope I made my position on that clear. I’d hate to have folks uncertain as to how I feel on other players telling Blizzard to remove content that they have as of yet only been able to speculate about and have absolutely no basis of fact to make any kind of informed decision on.

Ahem. Moving on.

Me, I’m looking forward to seeing how they are implemented, and if we will in fact be able to choose from various in-game rewards for accomplishing certain things, such as special titles as part of our character name. I think that sounds neat.

I am positive there will be many accomplishments that will be impossible for me to get with my style of playing.

And I am fine with that. FINE. I don’t have to do everything.

I don’t have to ‘win’ World of Warcraft. I don’t have to have Exalted with every faction… I won’t have to accomplish every Achievement.

But for every one of these frantic panicky tripped-out outraged posts I see, people worried about nerfed content and added Achievements and availability of crafted gear and unbalanced specs and changed Trees, I gots one damn thing to say…

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15 thoughts on “Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for 2007!”

Very well said! I’m not sure there’s a single point in there that I disagree with. I play this game for fun. Blizzard should make dedicated servers for the epeen strokers – only problem is most of them would deny that they fit the category.

And this is why I’ve taken to referring to this mess as the Rash of the Itch King.

Just because it’s leaked info doesn’t mean that the rest of the game entirely goes away for 4 months and nobody does anything but quibble, bitch, and argue about changes that are likely to get changed again >.>

But then it’s monday morning and I’ve not had my coffee yet, so I’m probably more grumpy about it than usual. Either way, I’m becoming sick of the expansion and it’s not even here yet!

And while I’m certainly curious, what I dread the most is the 40 bajillion death knights that are going to be everywhere you turn. I don’t like that you get them automagically at a relatively high level. I think you should have to start ’em from scratch.

@John: I agree. If DK can start at lvl 55, why can’t I start a new Rogue at 55 (assuming I have another toon that meets Blizzard’s pre-reqs for a DK)?

I suspect 6-9 months after WotLK is released, that will be true. I just can’t see folks starting new alts at lvl 1, when they can start a DK at 55. With only 3 lvls to “suffer” in old content. The “pain” of leveling is almost non-existent. As Outland leveling is fun and fast with nice rewards. And I assume leveling in WotLK will be the same.

Back on subject, I suspect WoLK will be released the 2nd week of Nov as I will be out of town that entire week! ;(

@John: I agree with you that it would be nice for Blizz to give us the choice of starting at 1 or 55 for non-DK. I also think the plethora of DK will be just like the horde of BEs and Draeneis at the start of BC, easier to pick them off, muhhhahaaaaaaa, sorry I live on a PvP server and often time it’s hard to resist the occasional gankage, especially if I know certain (alliance) guilds have being particularly mean in the pass.

It’s kind of sadistic, I know, but I love leveling from 1… it seems to bond me with my toons much more. I develop a play style, good or bad, with that toon when I level them from 1. Also, it seems that the leveling isn’t all that bad anymore, as I have now leveled 3 alts from 1 to 64+ after the new system was put in, as long as I have rest xp, I blow pass the levels soooooo fast. The key I think is to level like 3-4 of them at the same time so you can keep yourself busy while other get their rest xp.

I find the forum speculation amazing. Its almost as fun as politics if you enjoy that kind of thing; same kinda all knowing statements about the future, this is op this is a waste etc. . As with all fortune tellers and or weathermen I’ll just wait and see what we get. Hoiping for a fun challenge, some nice new enviorments and who knows maybe a pally only legendary weapon.

The only thing I don’t like about Achievements (assuming they even keep it like this) is the potential for guild chat spammination every time someone accomplishes one. I know some people like to announce dings etc etc but that’s more of a choice. I hope Achievements allows you to turn off announcements.

@awlbiste: Agree. The first time I read the achievement description I thought “they better give me a way to turn off that noise”. My guild is ripe with primary audience for achievements (casual “this is just fun” type player), so there would be an announcement every 10s.

My biggest fear is that “some day”, Blizzard will give an achievement reward that is actually useful, rather than just cosmetic, and those that have bothered to do them will have an advantage (head start) over those that never did them in the first place (other than by accident). Or (just as bad), there will be the perception that those that do not have achievement X are not “good enough” to do Y.

As long as they never provide any real benefit in the game, I’m fine with them.

Ahhh… I think I will tear up the WoLK post I wrote on scraps of paper this morning on the train to work…

I feel like anything written now will just put me on treadmill, where I have to go back and discount, or go forward and announce… maybe I will just wait till January when all the buffs and nerfs come through and write an 80% accurate post (I probably wont get that close… but I will try)

Gnome, don’t tear stuff up… but yeah, if you start playing the ‘report on neat stuff and WUT IT ALL MEANSES, then what do you do when it changes? When new data puts what you theorycrafted in a new light?

Well, you can do that and have a ton of fun.

A lot of work, though, and some folks are going to remember your original thoughts but not catch your follow ups.